Keep Calm and...

I have been stressing because I haven't posted anything this week. I usually would have had my Project Life posted and maybe one or 2 other posts, but for some reason this week has just taken over me in many ways.  Aside from additional 'work' work, school functions to head, and regular chaos, its been kind of an emotional week, with some life reality checks that have thrown me for a loop. Therefore, I have not had enough time and energy to do much with my blog. My Project life's Week 11 is about 85% done by the way, but the finishing touches haven't been completed. There are just NOT enough hours!!!

So when I realized it was already Thursday, I figured that instead of stressing and trying to post something I wasn't ready to post,  I was going with this poster's advice:

Or the next week for that matter! (I need to make a "Keep Calm and Just Blog Next Week" banner).  I have a few posts to get to, but with Spring Break starting on Monday and a pretty full one planned, it might just mean ANOTHER crazy week for me, but I will update you all as soon as I can.

So for now- Its going to be what its going to be! Life is to short to stress about this. Don't you agree?

From my little corner to yours...Keep Calm and...well...you decide! ;)

Smiles,

Project Life- Week 10

Hello there, its Week 10 and its been a week of catching up and a little bit more birthday celebrating and we've been busy as usual, so I'll get right into it.


  I did a bit more celebrating by going on a few more lunches with friends and family, and I always appreciate that time I get with each one. My SIL, Betty and I went out together on Thursday to celebrate our b-days which are week apart, and aside from always having a nice time together she was sweet enough to gift me with an amazing supply of Project Life accessories. She knows me soo well! She was the one who got me started on PL to begin with so she gave me all this fun stuff to use!! So what did I do.of course... I used it to enhance these pages today and I had a blast trying out different things.

Tags for Titles

Washi tape to attach movie tickt to pic

Tags for dates

Sticker phrases

Washi tape & Daily tags

 I don't like over accessorizing my pages, but I do like to add some details and that's what I tried to do with the cool things I got. I was really excited to use Washi tape which is the latest craze apparently and I loved it! I get it now! Thank you, Betty! ;)

Right side

I didn't take as many pictures this week, 

but it gave me a chance to do a lot more writing which I haven't done in a while, so that felt good!

 Side by side

I am looking forward to trying out more things on my pages as the weeks go by, but this week was fun to put together for sure.

So I am heading over and linking up on The Mom Creative to share with the others.

Thanks for stopping by.

From my corner to yours....Have a great week!

My "Stylin" Niece, Monica...

Again, here I am trying to catch up on a few things and I quickly mentioned this in my Project Life post from last week, but I wanted to go into a little more detail.

My niece, Monica, has always been a make-up loving, hair-doing, stylin' fashonista kind of little girl, and she's been that way as long as I can remember.  Well now that she's done some growing up and has been doing some career searching, her ways have led her to nothing less than choosing beauty as her career.  Sooo right up her alley! Her goal is to be a future make-up artist/hairstylist in the entertainment industry, and so she picked a school that would make it possible for her to get there. She's going to the internationally renowned AVEDA Institute.


She's been there since October, studying hair styling/color, and has been progressing and succeeding quickly, as we all knew she would. She's doing so well that already been put out on the floor to style incoming customers hair.  She has used a few of her family members as models and they've all been happy with her work, and now that she's a bit more confident about her skills, I felt comfortable asking her to cut my hair.


She was nice enough to make a house call the Wednesday before my birthday, and she impressed me from the get-go. She was ready!

 
She had this really cool and very complete work kit that she laid out ready to use, and then she popped on this very professional apron. She looked soo cute!



Oh, and I think that Monica forgot which aunt's house she was coming over to! Because as soon as she started setting up..I started taking pictures and she started laughing! Lol!
She should have known! ;)







I have to say that my vulnerability here is at an all time high! So I'm asking for your kindness please! These pictures are anything but flattering, but I guess the process to get to "beauty" never is?  So I'm taking one for the "blog!" So they are what they are! :\

Of course, I don't exactly know what she was doing, but I did see that she took her time to check out my hair lines and asked me all the questions as to where my part was and how much I wanted cut. But what I was most impressed about was her confidence. I have to say that I expected her to be a little nervous, but she wasn't (at least not visibly), and her hands were very steady, and I want to say she was calm and collected all the way through the cut. Again, I was so impressed!

 

Channeling Snoop Dog's hairstyle according to Jerry! 

Lol! Thanks Babe! ;)

 

She was concentrating! 

 

My hair was pretty dead at the ends, so I had her take off about 2 inches all around and give my layers some renewed shape and she did a great job! 

I styled it later and 

I loved it!

Thank you, Moni!!!

Monica is just starting out, but I am just excited that she found something that she absolutely loves, and the confidence she is building will get her far. She feels like she's getting great training and is proud to be part of the AVEDA Institute. Her hard work is paying off and she apparently already has some repeat customers at the institute's salon. Soo cool!

The AVEDA Institute has an Eco friendly salon and spa open to the public and has haircuts and other services starting at just $10. Stop by and ask for Monica by name (tell her I sent you!) What a fun day trip to Westwood that would make! Check out this site for more information http://www.avedainstitutelosangeles.com/

Monica, I see really big things coming your way my sweet girl, 

and may God bless you and guide you always!

  I am so proud of you!!

XOXO

 Tia Sandy

Foto Friday- Baby Jellybean's Fotoshoot

There are a few posts I have to catch up on, so today would be a good day to just share a few special pictures of my baby niece, Katarina for the latest Foto Friday.

So about 2 weeks ago I had the pleasure of taking the following pictures of our sweet little Jellybean  (1.5 weeks old at the time) in a few different hats that her mommy got that are especially made for newborns. Before this, I have had no experience doing baby pics, but I did try hard to get her some cute shots. I now see that it takes some patience and good timing to work with babies, so I had to work quick and take as many as I could of her in each hat because she was on the cusp between sleeping through the shoot and wanting to be awake.

Either way she was just too darn cute! It was so hard to not want to eat her up with all the silly faces she was making.  Too much sweetness!

So here are just a few of the ones I took...I hope you like them!

Again, there's much for me to learn, but the continued practice is helping and I was happy to to be able to even get a few shots out of a bunch...its a start!

I want to thank Jennifer Counter for her encouragement and generosity in letting me use her 28mm lens that allowed me to get these shots. Loved it... Thank you my friend!! :)

Thank you to Casandra and Sergio for trusting me to take these

 pictures of your baby girl.

I hope you all enjoyed them too!

From my corner to yours...Happy Foto Friday!

XO

Project Life- Week 9

Well week 9 was a good week for me! It was my birthday week and I've been looking forward to sharing!

Its funny because now that I'm doing Project Life, I have the interesting perspective of knowing that my birthday will always fall around the 9th week of the year...kind of cool! I had never looked at it that way.

I took a lot of pictures this week as you can imagine, and I've already shared details of my birthday in a previous post so I won't rehash those pictures too much, other than to say I added more of them in my pages through more than one collage. Its just really hard to pick a few pictures. But I also added of course, pictures from moments from days prior to my birthday, and as I look at them, I realize we actually had a lot going on.

So here is week 9:

Left side

I included all of the happenings of the first part of the week:

• The Title card is a picture of a B-day napkin I stamped # 42 on and just added text to it.

• Mikey wanting to mop my floors, and he did such a nice job that I wasn't going to take that joy away from him ;)

• My boys taking up playing catch outside together after school everyday this week...Those are the  moments that make my life as a mom GRAND!

• My niece, Monica, who's going to beauty school and already cutting hair, so she came over to cut mine for practice. I was impressed so I had to capture her in action!! Thanks Moni!

• And Danny's Honor Roll presentation- He was soo proud up there...good motivation for future successes! 

  

Left side with insert

The 8.5x11 insert

Front of insert

Back of insert with cards

Tissue paper covered folder

In the name of using a little bit of everything, and doing something different, I cut up a manila folder and covered it in the different tissue paper/wrapping papers I got and used those as a backdrop to scrapbook the extra pictures on the front side and use the back to store my B-day cards. Then I put this in an 8.5 x11 sized insert and it was the perfect way to combine all of this.

I realized the cards would be able to fall out so to make sure it was a solid addition I added a closure. I sewed a loop of ribbon on the back side of the plastic and a decorative button on the front side of the plastic for it to latch on to  secure the opening. Soo cool! That's what I love about this project! I can combine all mediums of creativity to make it special in different ways.

Final look

 The Right side with insert

Week 9: Side by Side

My Birthday week has come and gone and I'm so glad I have it documented and done to look back at.

I am sharing a little late this week both here and at The Mom Creative, but better late than never.

Thanks for stopping by!

From my corner to yours ....Have a great day!

Turning 42...

(One of the birthday cards I received...I had to share! Lol)

Happy Birthday to me...Happy Birthday to me....Oh wait, its over?

My birthday was on Saturday, but you always try to
make your birthday last a little longer, right? 

I am definitely going to try, but I did do some celebrating this past weekend!

However, before I get to the sharing, I just felt the need to mention that my post on Friday looking back at 41 was not complete as I failed to include a few other important significant moments. I'm won't go into details, but I just didn't get it 100% right as I mentioned I don't always do, and I truly feel bad. Writing that post was difficult, and I wont even try to make it up now because that isn't fair, but lets just say its never my intention to leave anything or anyone out of a post, least of all on purpose. So I wanted to acknowledge this before I could move on to my celebrating. :) 















               My birthday weekend started off on Friday night with a girls night out to a local Foot spa for what I thought would be just a $20 foot massage. Ummm...Nooo! It was so much more than that (lol, that sounds bad), but it turned out to be an hour long body massage (fully clothed people...Really!) that  relaxed muscles I didn't even know I had. I felt amazing afterwards! For $20...OmG! Thank you Amy for the invite, for hosting the appetizers after, and the "frozen" b-day cheesecake (lol) and to the group of girls who joined in...thank you for the entertaining conversations.  I had a great time and I hope to join you again soon!!

Birthday morning, Jerry and the boys sang Happy Birthday to me in bed accompanied by guitars,  love and a beautiful card, and then amongst much chaos the boys made me a cute pancake breakfast while Jerry put together his first lasagna ever that would turn out to be an absolutely delicious dinner for our evening with friends. It was super cheesy and he did a great job! Thank you to all my boys for your wonderful efforts to start off my morning well!

Next, I got ready for a some 'Me' time and I was off to Burke Williams to finally put to good use a gift certificate my brother had given me back in 2004!! I probably waited too long, but I was lucky enough to be able to still use it on a very much needed back massage and on just the right day. Thank you so much, Serg!!!

And as you can infer I don't usually have very many spa days so apparently my spa etiquette was lacking that morning? I was acting like a spa tourist (aka-ghettoish) as I was taking pictures of as many of the amenities they had to offer while I was there...the sauna, steam room, the jacuzzi,etc. And since I was stealing quick pictures, I couldn't quite get the cucumbers to stay on my eyes!  I'll try to behave the next time I come back...I promise! Lol!

Burke Williams is an amazing place. Its beautiful, peaceful and they truly make you feel special. I loved the attention, and because it was my birthday they upgraded my back massage with some aromatherapy lotion and gave me a bottle to take home! Wow...so Wonderful!!





And as an added bonus, I found an old friend there, Carmina, who was pampering herself along with her mother who was also having a birthday that day! It was a nice place to catch up with her, and we ended up leaving at the same time and took the opportunity to take a picture together.

I left Burke Williams, and stopped by Starbucks to get my B-day drink- a Venti, Java chip mocha Frap! Hey, even the barrista told me I had to make it good! And it was soo good!!
 And then I was off to get a really nice mani-pedi that my Mom and my Aunt had scheduled for me as my b-day gift. YAY! That was in addition to them watching my boys earlier that morning so I could enjoy my free time. Gracias Mom y Tia!!

(Mikey's contribution...so cute!)

 My sweet hubby had planned a dinner for me even before I knew what I was doing for my birthday.  It wasn't a surprise and I didn't want a party, but he had gone out of his way to make my dinner, to get my cake, and to have my family/friends there with me that night to celebrate. 

Thank you Babe once again for everything! 

I appreciate it with all my heart!

 I LOVE You!

I had my way with this chocolate cake this weekend!! And I don't regret it one bit!

Well I say that now, but come weigh in time, there will be consequences, but Its ok because I

 have the right to enjoy my birthday cake once a year!

It was such a fun night, and everyone who came 

(and even those who couldn't make it) always make it special for me 

so Thank You guys so much!

 XOXO

 

So that's it! 

Another birthday come and gone in one night, 

but I have a whole year to explore, grow and conquer it with God's grace!

 It turned out to be a wonderful 42nd birthday,

and 

Thank you all for stopping by to share it with me as well!

XO